1. Technical Field
The present disclosure generally relates to the automotive field. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to a system for identifying the components of a vehicle.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is known that motor-vehicles have several mechanical-electronic components mounted thereon, such as ECU (Electronic Control Units) units, ABS (Anti-lock Brake System), ESP (Electronic Stability Control), airbag, active suspensions, transmission control sensors, EPS (Electronic Power Steering) sensors, TPMS (Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems) sensors.
The control of these mechanical-electronic components is performed by means of a micro-controller that is connected to the components by means of a communication network, which uses communication protocols such as, for example, CAN (Controller Area Network), LIN (Local Interconnect Network), FlexRay, MOST (Media Oriented Systems Transport); the controller is referred to also as a network “manager”.
The mechanical-electronic components are subject to failures or wear and thus they need to be replaced during the vehicle life; using the communication network with standard protocols makes the replacement of the failed or worn-out components with spare parts easier.
It is important to ensure that the failed or worn-out mechanical-electronic components are replaced with type-approved mechanical-electronic spare components, i.e., that have been approved by the vehicle manufacturer because they comply with a predetermined quality level, such as, for example, a determined reliability, safety and compliance with the technical specifications. In fact, a spare component that is not type-approved may compromise the operation of the safety systems or the operation of the engine, because it does not comply with the same quality levels (for example, it does not allow to comply with the air pollution standards).
Moreover, it is important to avoid mounting spare components that were stolen, and it is necessary to check whether they have been really replaced. It is further necessary to check whether wrong spare components or spare components incompatible with the other components have been mounted.
Generally speaking, it is important to check whether the mechanical-electronic components mounted on a vehicle are type-approved, both in case the components were originally mounted (for example, during the manufacturing of the vehicle or before the vehicle is sold), and when the components have been mounted after the vehicle was sold as spare components for replacing failed or worn-out components.
A method for identifying the spare components is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,991,673, wherein the spare components have a non-volatile memory for storing a vehicle identifier. The inventor has recognized that using a vehicle identifier has the drawback that whether a spare component is original or type-approved cannot be detected. Rather it only allows detection (when the component is mounted on the vehicle) if it does not belong to such a vehicle.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,991,673 discloses the use of an external device (see block 46 in FIG. 1) connected to the vehicle by means of a control port (see block 44 in FIG. 1) and discloses that all the components store a same source identifier, wherein the source may be, for example, the vehicle manufacturer or someone else. Alternatively, the components may store identifiers that are generated by the source identifier by means of a cyclic redundancy code or by means of a hash function. This has the drawback that the use of an external device is required; moreover, in case of identifiers generated by the source identifier by means of a cyclic redundancy code or by means of a hash function, it also has the drawback that it loses information related to the source identifier.
A further description for monitoring the spare components is found in European Patent No. EP 2042379, wherein the spare components (see 100 in FIG. 3) have impressed thereon an information (for example, an identification number of the vehicle, the type of the spare component or a label which identifies the batch of the spare component) which can be read by detection means (62 in FIG. 3) and that can be interpreted by a controller (20 in FIGS. 1-3) external or internal to the vehicle; the information may be impressed into the spare components by means of the storage in a memory (134 in FIG. 5). The inventor has recognized that a drawback of this approach is that it is not able to detect whether a spare component is original or it is type-approved, but it can only check the state of the spare component, such as, for example the source batch, the wear status, the kilometers covered.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,890,807 describes a method for identifying the integrated circuits, wherein the integrated circuit is identified by a code univocally generated from some properties of the integrated circuit. This code is generated by the integrated circuit obtained after the manufacturing and by an analogous integrated circuit used as a spare part. A comparison between the two codes is performed in order to check whether they are equal: if so, the integrated circuit is original. The inventor has recognized that this method may not be used to identify whether the mechanical-electronic components mounted on a vehicle are original or type-approved, but it may be used only to identify the integrated circuits, because it is closely connected to the information that is formed in the integrated circuit on the cutting map of the silicon wafer.
A further approach for identifying the spare components is disclosed in the U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US 2008/0284571, wherein a radio-frequency identifier (RFID) is used, univocally associated with each spare part. This technique has the drawback that it requires an external radio-frequency identifier reader; moreover, it may not be used to identify whether the mechanical-electronic components mounted on a vehicle are original or type-approved, because the identifier of a spare component only allows to check (for example, to the vehicle owner) information about the maintenance which is carried out, such as for example, if the component has been really replaced.